War Machine - Movie Review

The Movie: War Machine

The Director: Patrick Hughes

The Cast: Alan Ritchson, Dennis Quaid, Stephan James, Jai Courtney, Esai Morales, Keiynan Lonsdale, Daniel Webber

The Story: During the final stage of US Army Ranger selection, an elite team’s training exercise turns into a fight for survival against an unimaginable threat.

The Rating: 7 / 10

The Review:

Netflix is constantly churning out new movies, most of which end up being lost and forgotten pretty quickly which is fine for the modern straight to video format although there are also some really good films that aren't able to receive a proper theatrical release and, for me, War Machine, falls firmly into that category. Is it groundbreaking cinema? No, but it's a really fun and exciting science fiction movie that has more than enough action to justify a big screen presentation, and I don't mean your home video setup, I mean a proper movie theater experience.

Alan Ritchson has become quite the action star, especially after playing Hawk in the Titans series as well as his true breakout performance as the title character in the Reacher series and I feel like this movie should elevate that status even further. His size and presence alone are more than enough to give him that rare star quality Hollywood is always trying to find and replicate as often as possible and, in this movie, I found his character to be very engaging as well in a classic, world-weary way.

It was unexpected, and very refreshing to see the character's mental health challenges at the forefront of his journey even in the midst of all the explosions and gun fire. In fact, I believe the action held that much more weight with his internal struggle being just as much a part of the story as anything else. Ultimately, the hero shines through, it just takes a while to get him there and Ritchson is more than up to the task of bringing all of it to life on screen.

We also get to see solid work from long time Hollywood standouts Esai Morales and Dennis Quaid, both of whom don't do a whole lot in the movie, but I felt like their parts in the story were still just about right. The rest of the cast is filled out with people I am not familiar with, other than Jai Courtney, so it was nice to see some fresh faces on the screen to go along with the more established veterans. The whole vibe of the movie, from the cast to the special effects really reminded me of Battle: Los Angeles which is a movie that I really loved when it came out and still enjoy returning to it every now and then.

Speaking of the special effects and also the action scenes, this is where I really wish the movie could have had some sort of theatrical release as it would have played better on big screens than most of the stuff that's out there. All the digital effects look clean and there are more than enough big stunt sequences to keep audiences entertained all the way through. I'm not saying this is a ground breaking piece of cinematic history but come on Netflix, movies like this are intended to be watched in theaters.

Thank you for reading this review and thank you as always for following along on my personal cinematic journey. Your support is very much appreciated.